


if you close your eyes does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

by jonphaedrus



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Gen, technically a songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:43:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fezebel; and what comes after. Written to Bastille's 'Pompeii'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you close your eyes does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rethira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/gifts).



 

 

_and the walls kept tumbling down_  
 _in the city that we love_  
 _grey clouds roll over the hills_  
 _bringing darkness from above_

 

i. —

When someone had called that there was only one company left in the valley below and had said the number of the valley, Rowen had nearly thrown himself down into the oncoming water. He could see them, tiny below, a small group of men and women, medics, as the wave rushed forward.

At some point, he could hear someone screaming Carrie's name, hoarsely and without stopping. He could feel his body moving, but it was some awful disconnect. He watched with the mind of the tactician removed from the battle, still screaming, watching his chess pieces be smashed to bits on the rocks.

When he started to run toward the water without thinking, a strong arm clenched around his waist, stronger than he was, and jerked him back to earth, dragged him down until he and Nachtigal, a solid wall behind him keeping him there, held him down, tight to the ground and tight to his chest.

"I'm not losing you too," Nachtigal said hoarsely into his hair, and Rowen slumped down in his arms, crying from his broken heart, incoherently into the palms of his hands. There was blood in his hair, Nachtigal's blood, and the younger man was crying into the collar of his shirt and he couldn't feel anything.

 

 

ii. —

Nachtigal reacted, in the first two days after her death, with vicious anger. He smashed furniture, screamed, broke three fingers on his uninjured arm, reopened the wound on his face twice after a healer had managed to close it. They threatened to strap him into bed if he didn't stay still, when he wouldn't they did so and he broke the ropes. People avoided his rooms, except for Ilbert.

He didn't do anything. He sat, silent. A once-talkative man, utterly mute. He cried, sometimes, wordlessly, long and low and slow. He didn't scream, like his almost-brother. He stared at his hands, like the ring on his finger wasn't there.

Their grief was a mirror, utter and horrible. It would end at night with Nachtigal, slumped and broken like a puppet with his strings cut, head in Rowen's lap. He would heave for shallow breath, his fingers clench white-knuckled in the older man's pants, and neither one of them would move, eat, drink, hardly dare to breathe. It was like someone had shut them down, cut them off from all their remaining humanity.

On the third day, Nachtigal began to vomit blood and finally agreed to let a healer put him on bed rest. 

Rowen locked himself in his room, and did not leave again.

 

 

iii. —

Her funeral was given in state, worthy of the only Princess. Only two of her surviving four brothers were there. One stood proud, already crowned, three of four. One was hunched, stooped, broken and unresponsive. He cried in great wracking sobs the whole time, soaking the bandages that crossed his face over his recent injury, and had to leave the service early.

Rowen was not in attendance. The Conductor had lost everything that seemed to remain to him, and locked himself in his room. Nobody had seen him for weeks, only that food left outside his door by the Prince had vanished inside and reappeared as empty plates.

The succession crisis wasn't a crisis any more, because nobody had the strength to do aught but mourn.

After the funeral, Nachtigal left the city. He didn't tell anyone where he was going. A servant continued bringing the tactician food. Nobody expected to see him again.

 

 

iv. —

The quiet didn't last. A month and a half later, Nachtigal returned from wherever he had gone, grey streaks peppering his temples, his jaw hard, stronger than before he left, cloth stuck to the deep, gouged scar on his forehead. 

He marched right into the palace, sword drawn. Nobody stopped him, they saw the steely resolve in his eyes and the anger in his steps and got out of the way as he climbed to the throne room, where his brother waited. 

"I should have known it would come to this in the end," Rahigal said, stepping down from his throne, lifting up the polearm by his feet. His guards left, knowing what he was about to do. "You were always too stupid for your own good."

"You're not fit to lead this country," Nachtigal replied, his voice cold like iron, clutching the sword by his side white-knuckled. "Carrie never would have let you."

"We'll never know which one of us she might have preferred now," Rahigal snarled, "Not that I ever cared anyway. She was always too soft for her own good."

"Don't you speak that way of her!" Nachtigal's voice was a broken shout, and he rushed at his brother. It was hardly a fight.

Rahigal had the high ground of his throne and the reach with his spear. It ended just as fast as it began: with Nachtigal on the floor, bleeding heavily from another gash across his face, crossing the old one, blood in his eyes and his sword on the floor. 

"You're a coward," he whispered to his brother, "You're weak. You only care about yourself, you're not fit to be king. You're not fit to live."

"You sure talk, for a man on his knees." Rahigal pressed the tip of his spear against his younger brother's throat, loathing in the pale blue eyes that looked back at him. "But you have nothing now. Our sister, in her folly, believed you were the rightful heir. She was always wrong."

"You slur her memory!" Nachtigal nearly surged up off of the ground, but his brother's boot planted firmly in his chest slammed him back to the floor with a pained cry.

"It's best she's dead; she was too soft for her own damn good!" Rahigal snarled, spittle flying from his mouth. "Without her and your precious pet tactician you're _nothing_. You're an upstart, and I should have killed you when I had the chance." Rahigal pulled his arm back. "I won't miss the opportunity twice—"

The tip of a sword sprouted between his ribs. He froze, arm still in place. He made a horrible gurgling noise, staring down at the blade that pierced his chest, trying to reach for it, dropping his spear to the floor with a clatter before the sword was withdrawn and he collapsed in a bleeding heap on the steps of the throne.

Nachtigal stared at Rowen. The Conductor hardly looked like the same man—he had aged more than ten years in just over a month. His dark hair had shot white, from root to tip, hanging lank over his shoulders. His once well-kept facial hair had grown into patchy stubble of brown and white, his grey eyes sunken in their sockets. He was haggard, his lean, strong body emaciated and his clothes hanging on his frame, his cheekbones showing beneath sallow, sagging skin. He seemed to barely be standing, but he held tight to the hilt of his sword and slowly shook Rahigal's blood off of the blade.

The crown had fallen from his brother's head and lay at Nachtigal's feet. He stared at it, almost unseeing, as Rowen practically collapsed to his knees right in front of him, the tendons in his hand showing around how tight he was gripping his sword, and he looked up at the younger man after a moment.

"I'm not losing you too." His voice had lost all it's life—he hadn't spoken since the tsunami. He sounded like a dead man, he looked like one. After a moment, he bowed his head. "Your Majesty."

Nachtigal stared at him almost without seeing. There was blood in his eyes. Rowen stared back at him.

They were silent, and eventually Nachtigal found himself laughing, hoarsely, quietly. He reached out, hand wrapped around the slope of his Conductor's neck, and Rowen grasped his shoulder, slumped forward against his chest, and laughed too.

Neither of them knew why they were laughing.

Probably because they were alive.

 

 

 

 

_oh where do we begin?_  
 _the rubble or our sins?_  
 _oh where do we begin?_  
 _the rubble or our sins?_

**Author's Note:**

> Comes from a million and five dumb conversations with Rethi.


End file.
